Sant Joan de Déu Research Institute
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Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience
Brainlab, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Barcelona (UB).
UB Institute of Neuroscience
Sant Joan de Déu Research Institute
Associate Professor, Brainlab, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Barcelona (UB)
UB Institute of Neurosciences
Sant Joan de Déu Research Institute
Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is responsible for the psychedelic effects of ayahuasca. According to the results of a phase IIa clinical trial published in Nature Medicine, this molecule improved depressive symptoms in adults with depression after one dose. The trial included 34 people, 17 of whom received intravenous DMT. This second group showed greater improvements in depressive symptoms than the control group. After two weeks, in the second part of the trial, DMT was administered to all participants and the antidepressant effects lasted for three months. Adverse effects were mainly pain at the injection site, nausea and transient anxiety.
Babies' brains specialise in their native language from pregnancy, according to a study carried out in France. The research team used encephalograms to measure the brain activity of 33 infants born to French-speaking mothers while listening to a story in French, English or Spanish. The results provide "the most compelling evidence to date that language experience already shapes the functional organization of the infant brain, even before birth," the authors write in Science Advances.